By James Hall
MAPUTO, Feb 21 2004 (IPS)

HIV/AIDS has not been seen as only a medical problem since the 1990s. The disease’s negative economic impacts on businesses in Southern Africa are being confirmed by surveys conducted by health and business groups.

– The anecdotal evidence all employers and workers share, which tells how AIDS is really devastating the workplace, is being supported by scientific surveys,” Mozambican AIDS activist Simeo Sithole told IPS.

Results of a new survey taken by the Bureau of Economic Research (BER) of South Africa were compiled between October and November 2003. Data shows a regional business community reeling under the impact of a disease that is robbing them of employees, negating years of expensive training, and cutting into productivity.

ôAIDS has profoundly shaken up the way business and industry operated in Southern Africa. There are serious consequences to the goal of full employment. Because of AIDS, some employers are seeking to find alternatives to human labour,” said unionist Brandon Simelane of Manzini, Swaziland.

The economic researcher’s survey found that 90 percent of companies included in the study suffered some kind of adverse impact due to AIDS. With statistical error plus or minus 5 percent, that means it is possible that virtually every business and industry in the region has been adversely hit by the disease.

Industries and agriculture in the productive end of the economy, as well as the transportation industry, are being impacted more than the retail and services sectors where products are sold and maintained.

The prevalence rate for AIDS officially is 25 percent in eastern South Africa, nearly 40 percent in Botswana and Swaziland, and well above 20 percent in the other nations of the 14-state Southern African Development Community (SADC).

Struck as they have already been by AIDS, businesses in the region foresee a glum future as the disease continues to cut into their profitability as well as their workforce. Nearly half of the companies surveyed feel that five years from now, AIDS will still be having a deleterious effect on their operations.

The effect on unemployment caused by AIDS is threefold.

Firstly, workers find themselves convalescing at home when they fall sick from the disease. If they are paid on a daily or piecemeal basis, this means they are in effect jobless from loss of income. As their illness persists, they become literally jobless, but too young to receive pensions.

Only a few workers or employees in the region are fortunate enough to have health or unemployment insurance.

ôRather than being a breadwinner, these household heads become a burden to their families,” said one social welfare worker in Lesotho.

Secondly, there is a need by businesses to find healthy new workers to replace those lost to AIDS. But this is a temporary situation, economists foresee.

One of the most common sights throughout Southern Africa is the sign hanging from factory gates or the front doors of stores and business establishments: ôKute Umsebenti,” which means, ôNo jobs.”

But the BER survey found 18 percent of regional businesses expect to add staff this year. The reason is not that their businesses are doing well and they need to expand. On the contrary, many countries are mired in economic recession.

Rather, the reason for the new hiring is simply to replace deceased workers and employees who have succumbed to AIDS. The hiring practice is called ôwork shadowing.”

ôAn 18 percent rise in employment would be Godsend to the region,” said an economist with the Central Bank of Swaziland, where formal sector employment currently stands at around 40 percent.

ôBut no new jobs are being created by the economy. It is simply attrition: companies scrambling to find able-bodied workers to replace their dead ones. It’s a gamble for companies, because by law they cannot administer blood tests to prospective workers, or demand confidential medical information. There is no way for an employer to know if the person he is hiring, and who he is about to invest time and money training, will be gone next year because of AIDS,” the economist said.

The BER report also notes that while 18 percent of companies expect to add new staff, this is a majority number compared to the 90 percent of companies that have been adversely impacted by AIDS.

The implication is that most companies may not be replacing their employees who have dropped out of the workforce because of AIDS. This means a probable net loss of jobs in Southern Africa.

The third way AIDS is impacting on regional workers is the prospect of future job loss as machinery and automation replace human employees.

Fifteen percent of companies surveyed plan to invest in some form of machinery to reduce dependency on human labour.

ôThese are jobs that once lost are unlikely to come back. That’s been the history of automation. It marks an historic change in Southern African labour trends. This has always been a region with a surplus of human labour, where labour is cheap and workers are plentiful,” said the Swaziland Central Bank source.

Now, because of AIDS, a significant minority of companies are determining that the historically ample supply of regional labour may be shrinking or disappearing. Or else they can no longer afford to train workers who within a relatively short period of time prove to be temporary employees.

Company size has an influence on the access workers have to AIDS information. Most companies with more than 100 employees have AIDS programmes in place, compared to few programmes found at businesses with less than 100 employees.

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